The Badge

About this book

Before Charlies Angels Miami Vice or NYPD Blue there was Dragnet. From 1951 to 1959 Jack Webb starred as Sergeant Joe Friday in the most successful police drama in television history. Webb ("Just the facts maam") was also the creator of Dragnet and what made the show so revolutionary was its documentary-style format and the fact that each episode was "ripped" from the files of the LAPD. But 1950s television censors deemed many of the stories in the LAPDs files too violent or sensational for the airwaves. The Badge is Webbs collection of stories that could not be presented on TV: untold behind-the-scenes accounts of the Black Dahlia murder the Brenda Allen confessions Stephen Nashs "thrill murders " and Donald Bashors "sleeping lady murders " to name just a few. Case by case The Badge takes readers on a spine chilling police tour through the dark shadowy world of Los Angeles crime. It is a journey that even four decades after it originally appeared in print no reader is likely to forget. The Badge comes with an introduction by master of crime noir James Ellroy.